Today's New York Times article titled "Major Companies Push the Limits of a Tax Break" strikes me as a microcosm of the challenges with the federal tax code.

It also reveals something else. It's a marketing strategy called FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt - and it's being used by the rich and powerful to protect tax codes which benefit them by making the rest of us afraid to support efforts to change or eliminate those tax loopholes.

The article describes a 90-year old tax code modification supposedly meant to be helpful to farmers and small businesses. When discussing tax codes as "helpful" it's important to always remember that that help comes with a price tag. That "help" means that the government isn't taxing a transaction. That, of course, means less tax revenues into the federal treasury and, like it or not, we will not see our federal debt lowered and our federal budget come closer to balance unless both sides of the ledger - expenses AND revenues - are tackled.

Don't get me wrong. I don't oppose every tax code meant to help businesses, especially small businesses. What I vehemently oppose is what seems to have happened here. It appears from this article that this incentive originally intended to benefit farmers and small businesses was eventually expanded and perverted into something that the likes of JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and GE may have abused.

How does that happen and why aren't we capable of doing something about it?

Perhaps this is one possible answer.

Whenever the topic turns to the economy, business, and taxation, we seem to allow the rich and powerful to control the discussion and to set the framework for what to do next. We allow the to do this by employing a strategy those of us in the sales and marketing profession know as FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Here's how it works.

We allow them to manipulate and control us by controlling the discussion mostly through fear and with heavy doses of uncertainty and doubt. Too many of us are easily (and to some degree, justifiably) frightened by the threat of the loss of the most basic thing needed to survive in a modern society; namely and for starters, a job which pays enough (but not always enough) just for food and shelter.

The things that used to signal the arrival into the middle class - higher education, vacations, and even a little free time to pursue interests outside of two or three part-time jobs - are now available and affordable to fewer and fewer people. All this at a time when taxes are at historic lows, regulation on businesses of all types has been progressively shredded over the last 30 years, the wealth gap is wider than it's been since the Gilded Age, and the federal debt keeps ballooning.

When it comes to taxes, the rich and powerful use FUD to make the same argument they always make: the beneficial tax treatment of these "...asset exchanges spur investment and help create jobs." They frame the discussion about raising taxes and doing away with loopholes by saying that if they are taken away there will be less investment and fewer jobs. My response to that argument is pretty consistently this: if that's true then why is unemployment still just under 8% and why isn't the economy growing faster? You rich and powerful people are getting what you want and it's still not enough?

This is overly simplistic, I know, but I still believe it's a valid stance to take in this argument. It's still a legitimate way to tear down and take back the framing they want to use when it comes to the tax code. If tax breaks like this are so great, then why are we in the terrible state we're in and why aren't the rich and powerful investing more into a recovery?

And when it comes to changing the tax code as a means for helping to reverse the federal government's mounting debt, the discussion must be first and foremost about the sort of code changes like this one that benefit GE and Wells Fargo long before even thinking about code changes such as eliminating mortgage interest deductions.

It's far past the time to end the corporate welfare system. That must begin with changes to the corporate tax codes. They must pay more, not less. Corporations have already proven they'll adapt and, besides, how much more is left for them to outsource overseas? They've refused to do anything except hold us all hostage through fear of job loss while they sit atop record-setting profits.

It's time to call their bluff.

One of the greatest challenges we face for reversing tax codes that benefit only the strong, the wealthy, and the powerful is our ability and willingness to call them out on their FUD strategy and to tell them that, "We're mad as hell and..."Well, you know the rest.

More than that, our elected officials need to know they can't use FUD on us either. If they have the courage to stand up to big money and the power elite, then they need to know that we will stand with them. We need more people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who seem to actually care about the middle class enough to stand up to Wall Street, big corporations, and the infinitesimally small number of wealthy people in America who already have rigged the system far too long and far too much to their advantage.

The wealthy aren't doing anything much to help the rest of us, so why should we keep kowtowing to them and their interests? Let's close tax loopholes that benefit large and wealthy corporations. It's a better place to start than with my home mortgage interest deduction.

Click here to find your Congressional Representative and tell him/her what you think. It's the only way they'll know.

Click here to learn more about and to get involved with Coffee Party USA and the work they're doing to restore our democracy.

Donald Trump raised eyebrows, to say the least, over his firing of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. It appears, though, that no eyebrows were raised so high as those of John Brennan, who used to head up the CIA. The former CIA director tweet…

There is no pro-life case for Donald Trump. Last week’s debate proved it.

Monica S Mcfeeters's insight:

If millions of Americans are proliferating and more agree with that daily... that in is actually the only way to prevent abortion. More women deciding to carry and deliver full term babies... Why not promote the agenda that helps all women to be access safe medical, housing and family development opportunities within the local communities and on the state and national level as well. Many women and fathers of child bearing age are working minimum or low pay jobs and often without healthcare...pro life to many is just away of saying anti-legal thus pro-illegal abortion...the old she should have kept her legs closed argument... and it’s a sorry argument. With Trump who expresses a right to be between any women’s legs he chooses without their consent it becomes also an evermore disgusting argument. These same people making that argument actually are the key reason he and the GOP can promote their immoral, greedy Me first libertarian agendas.

Former CIA Director John Brennan blasted President Donald Trump on Saturday after he tweeted about the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, calling the President "a disgraced demagogue."

America's gun death rate increased once again in 2016 in part due to spikes in violence in major cities like Chicago, according to CDC data

Monica S Mcfeeters's insight:

Looks like the 2nd amendment gives us the Right to have weapons to protect yourself from yourself in America only that isn’t how one protects oneself from oneself in a traumatic personal event and thus 3/4 of all American gun deaths are suicides... nearly all of us know someone that did committed suicide... access to guns is a risk factor... only less than 4% gun deaths are tied to mentally ill people. Many people become temporarily mentally ill or disturbed. Nearly none of us know someone killed by madmen of terrorist.

As an evangelical and member of the Global Advisory Board of Christian Post's parent company, I was heartbroken to read CP's recent editorial telling evangelicals that we have a moral obligation to vote and must vote for either Donald Trump or a protest candidate.

Monica S Mcfeeters's insight:

I went to peek into the new local coffee shop to see what it would be like. It has a Christian Coffeeshop theme. I have to admit that really is a new public coffee shop concept. A few years ago it might have given me a warm feeling. Sadly when I entered and looked around I began to feel repulsed. I think this is the harm Trump and the twisted type of libertarianism of the GOP do for the concept of Christian image. I wondered if I were gay would these people turn me away and make me feel like dirt. Would they refuse to serve me a cupcake and coffee? If I had risk my life to forge a better one in this country as an illegal immigrant would they be the first to call the police before I finished a cup of coffee. Would they hate me for daring to get a job they wanted or likely didn't even want? If I was wearing an ultra modest abaya would I be fearful to walk in for fear of being shunned for not being part of the club and belonging to a different religion?

I wondered about these things as I stood there greeted by an all smiles lady who informed me when they will open to the public. Then I thought of all the hatefulness and cutting off from other nations and pulling out global critical goals to solve global problems and the undermining of the interest and needs of the average worker and that these same people saying they support Christian morality had voted in a president who brags about permission extended by their vote to grab women between the legs without the woman's consent .... and to bed with multiple women and married ones as well. Do these people really support belittling anyone not white? One begins to wonder if they are going to fill up heaven who wants to be there? Maybe there is a different Heaven for other Christians that don't embrace such hateful notions? Ayn Rand would be smiling if she was alive today..Her goal of destroying the morality of Altruism (selflessness /will of God) and mysticism of any type of religious worship may be ironically brought forth by the Evangelicals and Trump's "Me first, America first" of Ayn Rand 's virtues of selfishness...I think Trump and his supporters will do more to harm the promotion of Christian Morality in our country and around the globe than nearly any other group in history. Maybe there is still time to turn that around.

Former CIA Director John Brennan blasted President Donald Trump on Saturday after he tweeted about the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, calling the President "a disgraced demagogue."

Former CIA Director John Brennan blasted President Donald Trump on Saturday after he tweeted about the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, calling the President "a disgraced demagogue."

On Tuesday, former U.S. intelligence contractor Reality Leigh Winner appeared in court in Augusta, Georgia, where her lawyers asked the judge to exclude her statements to FBI agents on the day she was arrested, arguing she was denied her Miranda rights. Winner is a former National Security Agency contractor who has pleaded not guilty to charges she leaked a top-secret document to The Intercept about Russian interference in the 2016 election. She is facing up to 10 years in prison on charges she violated the Espionage Act. For more, we speak with two guests. In Chicago, we’re joined by Kevin Gosztola, a journalist and managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He was in the courtroom in Augusta on Tuesday, and his recent article is titled “In Reality Winner’s Case, Defense Seizes Upon FBI Testimony to Bolster Motion to Suppress Statements.” And in Augusta, Georgia, we speak with by Reality Winner’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis. She’s joining us from her daughter’s house, where Reality Winner was questioned and arrested by FBI agents on June 3.

Very interesting article.... Trump broken promises that affects everyone about not cutting Social security and Medicare then signing a budget that cuts it by 200 billion as baby boomers hit old age or need disability may have helped Lamb rightfully gain ground.

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